Ezra is sick, again. At least he has a fever and is miserable.
That doesn't surprise me, since I have a hugely busy day ahead of me.
Today is Rachel's bridal shower. That starts at two. I roasted a turkey yesterday, and Priscilla and I got it all chopped up and pulled apart. For the shower, we are having egg salad and turkey-craisin-celery-pecan salad, on croissants, a lime coconut cake I adapted from Louella's Coconut Cake from the Mitford Cookbook, and fruit kebobs [the most beautiful girl i have ever seen with a ke-bab].

Then, Drew's [Rachel's fiance] family is eating here. I think there may be 11 of them, plus us 6, Drew and Rachel, Chris and Katie and their 2 girls, Dale, Priscilla. So, umm, that's 25 people eating dinner at our house tonight. Yup. So for that we're having pulled pork with fireweed jelly, rolls, bbq moose of some sort, pasta salad with shrimp, potato salad, corn, baked beans, and brownies.
It should be good, and I will survive. Except that our vacuum isn't working AGAIN. And it's the hose part, not the plug. Gaah! So please don't look at our floors.






Moose.



Coconut Lime Cake-un-iced

Hi!
Yes, I am still alive, and really quite well. However, I am also quite busy. Regular life, like today being muffin day, and a soup day, AND Selah has class at Russian Jack Springs park, instead of at the school, is enough. But Rachel and Drew are getting married in TEN DAYS!!! Chris and Katie, Addie and Allie get here Saturday night. On Sunday, I am throwing [man, that sounds so violent] a bridal shower for Rachel at 2 pm. Then we are hosting a meal for all of Drew's family who are here for the wedding at 6ish. I was planning to do the fireweed pepper jelly pulled pork thingy, but I just found out that his family, on the night they feed us, is doing Chalupa pork, which is a [Tex?] Mexican version of the same thing.
I think.
Anyway.
So I picked pulled pork cause it was so stinkin' easy. Now I'm wondering about moose. Wouldn't that be a little more fun? We'll see what we can cook up.

Selah's flowergirl dress came last night. It was very nicely packaged, but I was surprised at what a small bundle it was. There was a piece of lollipop stuck to the inside of the bag, but the dress itself was wrapped in tissue.








It's beautiful, but very wrinkly. It looks very nice on Selah. It may be a little too mature for her? I'm not sure. It looks like a little wedding dress [but not too much like Rachel's.] Selah loved wearing it when we let her try it on. It has quite a crinoline. I sort of wish we had gone for something a little more ball gown-ish, with more of a poufy waist. But still, it's beautiful, and for 19.99 for 3 weeks, I'm pretty pleased.

My sewing machine isn't working, and I took it in to get fixed so Priscilla could sew the table covers for the reception-it's going to cost $135.00 to fix a $300.00 machine. I'm looking for a Bernina on craigslist. I know I may be crazy. I'll look at Pfaff's too. We'll see. I think I need a machine with metal parts.

Eric is still working on odds and ends on the house. I hope on Saturday I'll feel the kick in the pants to really get working. I don't want to do a whole bunch of things now I'll just have to do again on Saturday/Sunday. And is it worth the stress to participate in the circle wide garage sale on Saturday for just a few little things? Probably not.

Ezra is not sleeping well. Teeth?

Our starts are happy. That, in turn, makes us happy.

The Cook's Illustrated thick and chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe is worth the trouble.

Lime juice, microplaned ginger, evaporated cane juice, and olive oil make a fantastic salad dressing [especially with fresh mango and avocado chunks with spring greens.]

I have 11 dozen eggs in my fridge. Cage-free brown mostly. Our family likes to eat them. And soon, we will have a lot of family here. And six half gallons of organic whole milk. Sadly, it's ultra pasteurized. I try to avoid the high heat treated, if I can, but I buy what's cheap. Sally Fallon would be ashamed.

I forgot to add, we finally were able to buy rice. We may have gone overboard, but we bought three bags. I was so excited to finally find the rice we like at Costco, we bought as much as we were allowed.




It's such a taste of how the rest of the world lives when there's a rice shortage.